Honour and duty
by elf-princess-girl
Summary: When the past comes back to haunt you, sometimes you don't like what it says. AryaFaolin OneShot


A/N Review please!!! Enjoy.

Disclaimer – Don't own. Never will. Don't sue, please!

Thanks for pointing out the spelling error. I honestly can't believe I did that! SORRY! It's hopefully fixed now.

**Honour and duty**

Her slender fingers trembled uncontrollably as she gripped the pale paper envelope in her hands. She touched the seal with a curved nail as though to break it, but only succeeded in closing her eyes to sigh deeply and drop her hand again. She would never have admitted it to anyone, but she was afraid. Afraid of what it would say inside the envelope's ticking time-bomb. Afraid of the consequences of those words. Afraid that the walls she had been building up since… last year… would come crashing down around her, all her defences would crack and crumble, and she would be left alone and terrified.

But best to get it over with. She wanted to read it, she really did. She was just afraid of what she _would _read.

Taking a deep breath, she slit the folded-over edge of the envelope. Now just came the challenge of reading it. She felt something cold and wet land on her hand as she shuddered with fright and nervous anticipation. As she looked down, she realised it was a tear. She was crying, for the first time in oh so many years. It may have been all the seventy years since she became Islanzadi's ambassador, all that time since she remembered crying. It was an intensely alien feeling to her, and not one that she was all too sure she liked.

Another tear gently rolled down her face and landed on the envelope, smudging the ink on the front. A large black blot had appeared in the middle of her name now, jolting her out of her memories and back to her life.

"Better now than live in fear of what you might have read and regret for not reading it," a little voice in the back of her head spoke up, its words sensible, but she wasn't in the mood to be sensible yet.

The shock of finding this letter after all those long, lonely months, just when she thought she might be able to let go, had unnerved her. She didn't want to let go though. That was her primary fear about the letter. That when she read it she would find the advice she had been given by everyone else since then, only written in the hand-writing she knew so well, it would be impossible to ignore.

It would no longer be dishonouring to move on – as was her current excuse. On the contrary it would be positively dishonouring _not_ to move on. And that was what scared her the most.

There would be no more excuses. No more pretence.

She made her decision.

She carefully unfolded the paper, barely daring to touch it for fear of marring the last contact she had with him, and began to read.

_Dear Arya,_

_I am sorry. For if you are reading this I am certainly dead. And so I am sorry. Sorry for all the things I never said, never did, never made you understand. Sorry for leaving you. Sorry for letting you love me. Sorry for loving you back._

She blinked away the tears that were blurring the writing. No. Sorry for letting her love him. NO. It was the best thing that ever happened to her. All those years she could have spent lonely, deserted by everyone. But because of him, she didn't have to. Because of him she was truly happy.

_I could never help loving you, Arya. Never. But I often wish I didn't have to. Often wish you didn't love me either. Simply because I want to spare you the pain my death must have caused. Want to spare myself the pain _your_ death would cause. I would not ever want to live without you and so I repeat, I am sorry. I am also sorry because now, due to my love for you, I am truly afraid. I am afraid that one day I may never hold you in my arms again, never again see your beautiful face, never hear you laugh. That is my worst nightmare. And now, as you read this it has become reality. I am sorry. Sorry for letting you down._

Blinking was not enough now. The tears were threatening to cascade down her cheeks and splash onto the paper, obliterating the words that she hadn't yet read. She grabbed a tissue just in time, just as the flood-gates truly opened. She hastily pulled it across her eyes, feeling the wet fibres become slowly saturated until they could no longer take any more water in and collapsed into her eyes, nothing more than a soggy, white mush. He had never let her down. Even as he died he had been fighting to save her life, not his own. Fighting to let her escape. Without him she wouldn't even be _alive_, never mind where she was now, Saphira would be in Galbatorix's hands and the country would be practically doomed. He not only saved her life, he saved the entire world. He was such a hero, and yet so few people knew it. Let her down! That was the sole most ridiculous thing she had heard since he died, including all the drivel Eragon came out with.

_And now to my second point. This is possibly the hardest thing for me to ever write. Do not let your pride and honour stand in the way of your happiness. As countless wonderful people (Brom, Ajihad, Hrothgar, spring to mind) will no doubt have told you – Move on. Let go. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that the end of my life has to mean the end of yours too. I will not ask you to forget me- never forget – just to start again. Live again. _Love _again. Be happy, my darling, darling Arya._

He didn't understand. To love again would not make her happy. Nothing would now. _He _was her happiness, and now he was gone, so was it. Forever. He wasn't coming back. Neither was her true happiness. And the comment about Brom, Ajihad and Hrothgar, though meant to praise them, only served to make the desolate feeling inside her grow worse. She wanted to scream until her lungs burst from the pressure of it all and then, maybe then, the empty space inside her might not ache so badly and she could simply curl up on the bed and lie forever in her eternal sleep.

Three more good men dead, the last words she ever said to each of them angry and hurtful when the only crime of these people was trying to help her.

Brom, he was only trying to reconcile her with her mother and the other elves, and what had she done. Just coldly stared him down and told him maybe he should get to know her mother a little better before he judged her. And all before blithely riding off to the Varden and getting captured by Durza like the idiot she was. By the time Eragon rescued her, Brom was dead. Gone. Forever.

And Ajihad, what was it he said again? Oh yes, she remembered, plain as day. It was when they had first been talking, just after the battle of Farthen Dur, about Eragon and the extent of his talent. Suddenly Ajihad had turned back to her and said,

"I've seen it so many times, my lady Arya. Seen the way he looks at you. It's purely natural that your first instinct is to reject anyone who gets close –the past hurts, trust me, I know – but you've got to get over that barrier eventually, better now than when you're accustomed to loneliness and it will be so much harder. Just remember, there's no shame in letting go, no shame in learning how to truly live again. The only real shame lies in forgetting. Forgetting the past, but also forgetting honour and duty.

His significant look was not lost on Arya at that point. She had been so angry then, angrier than she ever had been before.

"You don't understand a thing, do you!?" she'd snapped back. She remembered her tone perfectly, crisp, cool and brusque. "I'm doing this _for_ honour and duty, I'm not forgetting them! I won't replace him, Ajihad, I won't!"

"New love is not replacement, Arya. You can't deny his feelings for you are strong."

"He is a boy! A boy who knows nothing of my past and does not understand for that very reason!"

"Well, in that case, tell him. Explain." A very reasonable idea from Ajihad. But when it came to this, Arya was not a particularly reasonable person. She had simply shaken her head contemptuously and stormed back to her chambers. She had fumed for days – everyone had noticed. How dare he! But fuming didn't do any good now. Fuming didn't bring dead people back.

Hrothgar was worst though. For the simple reason that it had been such a petty, silly argument. Not worth it at all, she was just uptight due to the trip to Ellesmera going so badly. It was about nothing at all really. A stupid row over the argument she had had with the priest about the credibility and existence of Dwarven gods, of any God at all come to that. It had all culminated in her calling the priests a "bunch of delusional idiots" and –yet again – storming off. This time to try and find Eragon rather than hide from him. She needed someone to spar with and take her aggression out on. Not being endowed with elvin strength and flexibility he was the perfect target. She hadn't seen Hrothgar since then, until the day he died. She didn't even mean what she'd said to him, but she could never tell him that the words had only come out in a fit of anger due to the dwarves threatening them the day before. All these good men had died before she could explain what she really felt, before she could apologise to them. They died, most likely, thinking her words reflected her true feelings, thinking she truly hated them. And now they would never know the truth. What made her so tense, so snappy, sometimes: It was not hate, it was anger – about that they were right – but not anger at them, just anger at the world. And mainly anger directed at Galbatorix, Durza and the Urgals, especially after Gil'ead, after him, after they tore her world apart around her, destroyed her life.

And now it was all being thrown back into her mind. The memories were returning, an unstoppable flood of them, all the things she had tried to hide, tried to forget all this time. And the stupid, stupid irony of it all – it was his fault.

For the first time she was angry with him. What good was this stupid letter supposed to do except to dredge up all the old feelings and memories and confuse her even more. It wasn't going to bring him back, it wasn't going to suddenly make her believe in an after-life, make her believe she'd ever see him again. And yet she was glad for it, simply because it made her feel as though he was right there beside her, she could hear his familiar voice whispering the words in her ear. The words she wasn't ever going to read if she didn't pull herself together, she realised. The paper crumpled in her vice-like grip as she read on.

_Promise me, Arya, that every time you remember me, you remember the good times, and remember this. Remember this letter. Remember, I was the sensible one, I know what I'm talking about. Trust me, Arya, take my advice, live the life you would have lived if I had never existed, or at the very least our paths had never crossed. Love cannot be used as an excuse for everything, do not try to make it so. Move on and live._

_However, if I ask you to do one thing for me, go back to Ellesmera. I would not ever ask you to if I thought it was not best for you. You cannot live your life, losing the people you care about most, without your family. You know as well as I do that this 'hatred' of them is a complete façade, just as is the Queen's for you. Family love each other, much as they often try to pretend they don't. And that is why I say go back, talk to them, love them as much as you ever did. Forgive and forget, Arya. Forgive._

_All my love forever and always,_

_Fäolin _

_P.S One more thing – one last thing. Please keep the flower, it took me ages!_

She would have laughed if she had any strength left to do so. That was so typical, he just had to leave her one parting note to stop the tears. But he was right. She was an idiot. She threw the paper on the table next to her and lay down on her bed, crying. Crying for all the life she gave up because she was too silly to see that they were all right, every last one. Brom, Ajihad, Fäolin. Move on.

Her parched lips croaked out one word. One word that would finally start her on the path to doing the right thing. Honour and duty.

It was barely a whisper but it was enough. She knew she could do it.

"Eragon"


End file.
